'Ello, my dear life/marriage saver. You really have no idea how much we need your help. If I was a producer for FOX, I would make you a show called "Baby Naming 911".
I'm Abby, he's James, and our surname is Winters.
My husband and I are expecting our second and third on October 24--yup, we're having fraternal twins, a boy and a girl. I'm freaking out, because I'm HUGE and my three-year-old son, Leo Sebastian, just poked my stomach asked if he's "getting hippos" (his favorite animal) for his baby brother and sister. Yeah. Insert very irrational run/waddle to the mirror while scaring the you know what out of my son and husband with a crazy, pregnant with twins, hormonal woman sobbing fit here.
And worse is that my dear, dear husband and I can't agree on any names, which is stressful and a bit disorienting because we decided on Leo's name literally right when we found out we were having a boy.
We have very similar taste (kind of a vintage, British-quirky kind of thing) which I think is making it difficult because we both have our own favorites and while we like each other's names we like our own better. Having twins just makes it worse, because while the ideal situation is where I pick one twin's name, he picks the other's, or where he picks a name from my list, I pick a name from his, we really want to absolutely love both of their names.
We do NOT want their names to be matchy, but it would be nice if they were complementary style-wise.
My favorites (not in order):
Violet
Alice
Ivy
Juliet
Nora
Elsa (Elsie)
Jasper
Henry
Maxwell (Max)
Edward (Teddy)
Jude
Oliver
His favorites (not in order):
Matilda
Penelope (Nellie)
Ramona
Beatrix
Felicity
Dashiell (Dash). Yes. He only likes one boy name. Sigh. Husbands.
I'm pushing for Ivy and Jasper, he's pushing for Penelope and Dashiell. He thinks mine are slightly boring, I think his are a tad too flamboyant. We both want a name that's not popular, though that might be the destiny of most of the names on my list.
We're thinking that maybe the best thing to do is scrap both of our lists and try to find two names that we both love. That's where you come in.
Could you suggest some names that we could both adore?
And if worse comes to worse, could you pick and pair some names from both our favorites?
Thank god you exist. Thank your parents for us.
I think you should come around to his idea of Felicity, and he should come around to your idea of Oliver. Oliver and Felicity Winters! Or he could come around to Henry and you could come around to Penelope: Henry and Penelope Winters! I love the repeating vowel sounds: the i-as-in-igloo of the first set (especially with the same sound in your surname), and the e-as-in-elephant of the second set. (I'd love to suggest HE come around to some of YOUR great girl names, but I don't like Dashiell with anything.)
No, no, actually I agree with you: it would be even better if neither of you had to come around to a name. Fresh meat, then:
Boy names:
Aidric
Alton
Augusten
Barnaby
Cabot
Charles
Edmund
Elliot
Emmett
Everett
Felix
George
Graham
Harrison
Hugo (maybe too much O with Leo)
Louis (maybe too much L with Leo)
Miles
Milo (maybe too much O with Leo)
Phillip
Reid
Reuben
Ridley
Rudy
Rufus
Sebastian
Simon
Terence
Tobin
Wesley
Girl names:
Amabel
Anastasia
Annabel
Aquilla
Bianca
Camilla
Cecily
Clara
Cora
Elodie
Eloise
Emmeline
Fern
Genevieve
Georgia
Imogen
Iris
Lorelei (maybe too much with Leo)
Magnolia
Meredith
Millicent
Minerva
Philippa
Stella
Verity
Willemina
And this is the challenge of twin names: heaven help us, now we have to COMBINE. There is just no way to do a thorough job of this without having it be a two-step process where FIRST you guys chop those lists down and THEN we combine what remains. But alas. And so I will just assemble some SAMPLE combinations, and perhaps others would also like to assemble some sample combinations.
Aidric and Bianca
Elliot and Camilla
Everett and Anastasia
Felix and Minerva
Hugo and Elodie
Milo and Emmeline
Phillip and Cecily
Rufus and Imogen
Simon and Clara
And may I say, I SO ENVY you your surname. It is wonderful with almost everything. Clara Winters! Minerva Winters! Reid Winters! George Winters! It makes almost every name sound MORE wonderful than alone.
Name update 10-23-2010! Abigail writes:
The twins were born last week, which was totally awesome because they almost went full term. It was such a HAPPY experience and both James and I feel extremely LUCKY to have had such healthy babies.
So yeah. Hint hint...
We chose Felicity Iris for the girl, and right now we call her Fliss (but when she's not so baby-like we'll start calling her by her full name). I actually ADORE her name, so much. I don't know why I didn't love it before, but your email [note from Swistle: I sent an email pushing for my top choice. Yes, that is cheating. No, I'm not sorry.] cemented the name into my head and my heart (yay for cheesiness) and I swear that the moment after I finished reading the post and your email I turned to my husband and told him we were going to name our daughter Felicity.
He was like, "cool," and then since he got the name that he wanted he told me that he relinquished all naming powers and that I was in charge of finding the boy name.
And so I got a list of names that I really, really liked and took them with me to the hospital, because I couldn't narrow it down to just one before the birth. When the whole caesarean thing was finally done and I was stitched up, I took a moment to call our son each name on the list, and only one fit. He ended up being named Oliver August, and we're calling him Ollie at the moment.
It's funny, actually, because that's one of the twin sets you suggested. Thanks again!
So our wonderful children are now Leo, Oliver, and Felicity. We did worry that there was too much "L" floating around in their names, but we decided that we rather like the connecting "L" sound in each of their name.
